I ache. All over. Owie.
We had two three hour choreography rehearsals this weekend for Mattress and covered the Prologue, Song of Love, and part of Opening for a Princess. It’s Song of Love that’s got me in this state. Nichelle assigned Regan and me to be cheerleaders and told us to “be creative” so, of course, being us, we went nuts! And now I’m one big owie.
On the plus side, I’ll probably be in better shape by the time the show’s over. 🙂
I found out last night that Regan has never seen The Music Man! It came about because, when Lise was blocking Swamps of Home she was trying to explain that in a particular section of the song, she wanted us to look a bit like the women doing the Grecian Urns (one Grecian urn… two Grecian urns… and a fountain, trickle, trickle, trickle), and Regan didn’t have a clue what she was talking about!
This from a… well, ok, she was never a music major, just an undecided music enthusiast, but she took lots of music classes, you’d think somewhere, someone would have introduced her to The Music Man! Well, if no one else will do it, I will. We’re having a movie night someday soon (just need to get our schedules sorted) so she can watch it.
If Mary Beth and Sherry can make it too, we’ll make a SKVE night of it. We’ve been talking about asking Regan to join the SKVEs and this would be a good trial run, to see if she’s up to our particular brand of movie-watching. The last person we invited, Kelita, couldn’t seem to understand why we found it so amusing to MST3K our way through Pride and Prejudice (“look, I have a sword!”, “are you sure those are period sheep?”).
It’s the last day of Spring Break (Saturday and Sunday don’t count, they’re not work days). As usual, I had to work during Spring Break, but I asked for a couple of days off in the middle. I mostly lazed, but I got a lot of recording done for my latest LibriVox solo project, The Scarlet Pimpernel. I have one last file left to edit, and then it can be catalogued. I really sped through this one, for some reason. I only started it at the end of February! (literally, the 28th).
I have a couple other projects in progress; Pirates of Penzance, which I’m trying to get finished this month, during March Madness; the other two are MC projects, my first two, since I was made an MC a week or two ago. Nothing too difficult yet, but I haven’t gotten to the cataloguing part yet. I’d meant to ask kayray, my MC if she’d let me catalogue Scarlet Pimpernel, so I could get it figured out, but she started before I could ask. I’m thinking of maybe MC’ing a weekly poetry project as a way of getting my feet wet instead.
We had auditions for Once Upon a Mattress last week, and I got cast as Lady Lucille (one of the ladies-in-waiting) and the Pantomime Queen (I thought I read quite well for the Queen :)). As Lady Lucille I get to hang out with Regan and Beth. So much fun! I think it’s going to be a great cast. I haven’t actually counted, but I’d say I know at least half of the people already from previous shows.
In knitting, I have this particular pattern for a little dress that I’ve been wanting to make since I first saw it over a year ago, but my friends keep having boys! I’d decided that if Meredith turned out to be having a girl, I was going to make it for her, but no, she’s having another little boy! *sigh* So, I gave her the book to look through instead, so she could pick out a pattern. She ended up asking me if she could take it with her over Spring Break, because she couldn’t decide, and she was going to make her mom choose for her! 🙂 So, I’ll find out next week what I’m making for her.
Sometimes it seems that my friends get together and agree when to have babies. It often happens that if I hear from one that she’s pregnant, I’ll hear from at least one more within a few weeks. And so it has happened again. This time, I have four friends having babies within the next few months. So, I’m busy knitting baby clothes, and I’ve finished the first item.
Now I just have to decide who it’s for!
So just for the fun of it, I decided to make myself a Gryffindor scarf. I finished the knitting last weekend, and then wove in all the ends during the week – and believe me, there were lots of ends to weave in, two for each colour change. The finished scarf is about six feet long, worked in Unger Utopia, two skeins of each colour.
I took it in to work to show off the day after I finished it, and one of my co-workers, Ethel, liked it so well, that she asked me if I’d make her one. She knows nothing about HP, she just liked the stripes, the yarn and the weight and warmth of the finished scarf. Hers is going to be turquoise and white; I’ve already ordered the yarn for it.
So without further ado, a couple of pics of the scarf:
So, as promised, some pics of the little Border Collie I knitted for mum; Toby, as she calls him.
I also took some pics of mum’s real Border Collie, Lassie (yes, I know, not the most original name… I expected better from her, but still :))
Sweet, isn’t she? But, just when you thought you were safe, she turns into…
A DEMONHOUND!!!
Just kidding… but it is kinda freaky looking, isn’t it? 🙂
I’ve started a new blog on Xanga to keep track of the books I read this year. Head over there if you’re interested at all.
I did finally finish the Border Collie I was making my mother, though not in time for Christmas (more like New Year). Sewing it up took way longer than I’d expected. I have some pics, but they’re on my laptop and I’m currently at work, so I’ll post them later. I’m not terribly thrilled with the way it turned out. For one thing, I wasn’t able to find eyes in the right size. The pattern called for 12mm, and the smallest I could find was 15mm, so he looks a bit bug-eyed. Also, in retrospect (meaning after I’d sewn him up), I realized I should have put way more stuffing in him, especially in his front legs, because they were getting a bit floppy and he couldn’t sit up straight. Still, it was my first attempt at a stuffed animal, so it wasn’t too bad, and mum was quite pleased with him. She’s named him Toby and she sits him on her bed every morning with his front paws on the window sill “so he can see out and amuse himself while she’s at work”. 🙂
Now, in reaction to two fairly complicated projects (the dog and the shawl), I’m working on something nice and simple, where I don’t have to think at all, just let me fingers do their thing while I watch tv. I’m making a Gryffindor scarf. I’m actually nearly done with it. I mean it to be about six feet long and it’s already nearly as long as I am tall (meaning 5’2″). I’ll take some pics of it once I’m done (possibly wearing both it and my masters’ gown, for better effect :))
I’ve also been working on my first pair of socks. I found a toe-up pattern that looked pretty and I started them about two or three months ago, but the needle size they recommended was way too small, and it made the knitting too tight and hard to work (plus I didn’t like the way the pattern said to do the increases – it made the fabric untidy). So, I frogged what I’d done so far and started over with some larger needles. I’ve done about half the length of my foot on the first one and I think, maybe I should have done one needle size smaller (the original was US 0, and I went up to US 3) because it’s a little loose, but I think I can fix it. Anyway, I’ll post pics of them too, when I’m done.
I really need to pay more attention to details when I’m buying yarn for my projects. It turned out that that lovely, soft and furry yarn I found for the border collie was “bulky” weight, not dk (which is sort of between worsted and sport), so when I knitted up the back of the dog, the gauge was completely off. I ended up having to go and buy another couple of skeins of yarn, but I wasn’t able to find any dk or sport weight in the brownish colour I wanted (since my mother’s border collie is brown and white, not black and white, those are the colours I wanted to use), so I had to go with black and white instead. Ah well. I’ll just have to use that furry yarn on some other project… maybe a hat.
Here is a pic of what the dog’s supposed to look like when I’m done.
So I went to Hobby Lobby on my lunch break to buy the yarn I’m going to need for my next project (a toy border collie for my mum). I found a really cool yarn in the two colours I needed for the fur, really soft and almost furry feeling. Then I needed just a little bit of pink, brown and silver for the tongue, collar and tag. I found the pink and the brown easily enough, but it took me a while to find the silver, and when I did, there was only one skein of it on the shelf, and that was all tangled up. Plus, it cost $4.59! I didn’t particularly want to spend that much when I only needed maybe 5 yards of the stuff, but it really was the perfect colour. So I took it with me to the cash register and asked if I could get a discount on it, as it was all tangled up. End result, I got it for half off! Go me!
Today I finished my biggest and most ambitious knitted lace project to date, and I must say I’m quite proud of the way it turned out! It’s about four feet square. Have a look:
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